Thursday, July 20, 2006

Roommate search

It is Africa hot.  I'm sure that I have sweated off a pound today.  I boxed up all of the stuff my former roommate left in my basement.  I was always impressed by his vocabulary.  I knew he read a book a day.  I think I found them all.  On each shelf, when I removed one row of books, there were two rows behind that.  I boxed up over 200 paperbacks, and a couple dozen hardbacks.  Some of them, I'd like to read.  He left some sci-fi that looks pretty good.  He left a lot of power tools.  I found lots of cordless Ryobi stuff, but a DeWalt charger. . . so none of it does me any good.  I found his Army discharge papers and some court rulings against him for back child support.  I perused his photos, and got a glimpse into his past and realized I lived with him on and off for over a year and never really got to know him.  He left two very large pieces of furniture that I suppose I'll list on craigslist or something.  Does anyone need a very nice, large, wooden, executive desk and credenza? 

I'm in a quandry about how far to go with improvements.  If I fix the shower, replace the carpet, and slather on a coat of paint, it will be very liveable again.  If I take down the wood paneling and put up some drywall, in addition to redoing the floors and painting, I can up the rent somewhat and recoup the cost in a few months.  My ad on roommates.com is getting massive response.  If I put in a stove and some minimal kitchen cabinets, it will be a self-sufficient apartment space.  I can up the rent even more and probably recoup the costs in the same amount of time.  The idea for now is just to get someone neat in there who pays me money reliably and regularly. . . and I think I've found her.  Her name is Nicole.  She's coming over for barbecue on Friday.  I hope we can strike a deal.  Being the experienced landlord, I'm making sure everyone's key responsibilities will be in writing.  Landlord keeps the utilities on and repairs made, and Tenant pays the rent on time.  Woot!

On the job search front, I was blindsided by a sudden phone interview which the recruiter scheduled with almost no notice after I sent him a modified resume which emphasizes my Perl experience.  Once on the phone, the recruiter introduced me to the guys doing the technical screening in the web/applications development department at UMB Bank, of all places.  Lucky for me, I have friends who work there, so I proceeded to drop names.  I was informed 30 minutes after the interview via IM from said friends that I was in the top two.  I haven't programmed full time since 1995.  I will have to really hit the books to get my (non-existent) Java and .NET skills up to par.  I think I have the *nix, mod_perl, and SQL under control, which was what they were looking for.  I wouldn't mind a medium to low stress coding spot for a while.  This will pay the bills while I work on my network certs, too.  I might rediscover my enjoyment of programming.  I have a friggin' degree in it.

2 comments:

  1. Here's hoping you get the room-mate AND the job.

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  2. You could potentially be working with Patrick Brown, Casey Mattson & Eric Foster.  Not a bad group of coworkers.  Since this is in the web development area, you'd probably be working closest with Casey.

    Still think you should have taken the job here at DST... they need someone like you over in design & infrastructure.  Heck, we've got 2 openings right here in NS Troubleshooting.  You've gotta admit... sweet commute.

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